Fader: Same as it always is, your boss is a butcher. He proved that in the Fourth Defiance. I’ll always stand against him.

Anubis: You are pretending you have a problem with butchers? You work for Peggy Martin!

Fader: She isn’t the one burning cities to the ground around these parts.

Anubis: Really? Have you seen what your new compatriots left in their wake in Laredo?

Fader: …

Anubis: In case you haven’t, they burned it to the fucking ground. So go on and tell me how that’s ok with you.

Fader: I… look…

Anubis: Was it ok because it was on our side of a line on a map? Because it dared to stand up to your boss?

Fader: No, but…it’s a war, right? They probably didn’t have a choice.

Anubis: Ah, so Zeus is a butcher because he fights back when Prevailer sends her goons to slaughter his people, but she is not a butcher when she sends them, because no choice or whatever? That makes sense to you?

Fader: You are twisting it.

Anubis: I’m not asking for much. I’m asking you to swap your allegiance from the bad woman who rules a few million to the bad men and women who rule billions. Turn your coat, your bosses certainly can’t get any worse.

Fader: One of your bosses is literally named Death. She runs slaughter camps.

Anubis: To make Ultras to defend us against the Fists. Have you been deathless so long you’ve forgotten what it is to fear?

Fader: Nothing about the Link changes who we are.

Anubis: Debatable, and also, I wasn’t talking about the Link. I’m talking about your power. Your vaunted ability to take yourself out of a situation. Just turn yourself into this powerless, and protected, image, and let the world go by.

Fader: My Gift didn’t change me either. I do what I can to protect the place I grew up in. I would do that even if I could die.

Anubis: Sure you would.

Fader: Believe what you want.

Anubis: Alright, this was the usual waste of time.

Fader: Don’t act like you are surprised. You had to know how this would go.

Anubis: I did, but my bosses are always curious. It would have been good to preserve you once the Regime was gone. Someone needs to run North America for the Pantheon.

Fader: The Regime doesn’t look to be going anywhere.

Anubis: You aren’t looking in the right places. The Fifth Defiance is already underway.